[Etienne,DuchessofBurgundy]

Swaziland's king faces increasing disaffection
New York Times
MBABANE, SWAZILAND--Not every grand event goes off without a hitch, but it is safe to say that few parades have been so decisively rained on, literally and otherwise, as the one over which King Mswati III presided here Friday.

A ferocious thunderstorm descended on this capital city Friday afternoon at the climax of the annual dance of Swaziland's young women before the king.

The king frequently uses the occasion to select candidates for his stable of wives. Not so Friday: An onslaught of pea-size hail sent perhaps 15,000 women, each one stripped to the waist for the coming-of-age rite, fleeing the parade grounds despite urgings over loudspeakers that they channel the storm's energy into their dancing.

Witnesses said the hail and a subsequent cloudburst erupted just as footmen were unrolling a red carpet so that the 35-year-old king could join the dance and begin his inspection.

"When the king arrived at the stadium, it wasn't that serious," said 17-year-old Bongiwe Dlamini, who lives with her parents and eight brothers and sisters on the capital's outskirts. "But then there were huge black clouds, and when the hailstones started, we ran for cover."

It was an especially bad day in what has not been a good 12 months for the eccentric king's extravagant and autocratic style of rule.

Political opposition to the monarchy has been banned for 30 years, since Mswati's father scrapped a British-style constitution and declared himself to be the law, rather than a figurehead monarch.

But open criticism of the monarchy has risen markedly this year. It is fueled by a depressed economy, a public-health catastrophe -- Swaziland has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates, and life expectancy at birth is but 37 years -- and the king's own taste for excess.

Mswati, or "the Lion," as he is known here, is so all-powerful that his subjects address him on their knees, and he can overrule court decisions and ignore his own decrees. In a country where unemployment runs to 40 percent and where two of every three people live in poverty, he has bestowed luxury cars on his nine wives (he is engaged to two more women) and their mothers.

Two years ago, saying that he wanted to stop the spread of AIDS and promote modesty, he forbade the wearing of pants by young women and ordered them to abstain from sex until age 19, only to break his own rule not long afterward by selecting a 17-year-old girl as his next wife. To much disdain here, Mswati fined himself one ox for the offense.

In the last year, critics have become increasingly willing to challenge royal authority. In July, an underground group, the Swaziland Youth Congress, called for its members to carry out armed attacks against the government. Last month, the country's labor union staged a rare, organized protest for three days, blocking a major border crossing with South Africa.

A new Mswati-endorsed constitution, preserving most of the king's all-encompassing powers, has been ridiculed by opponents. But journalists who criticize royal institutions too firmly are either arrested or hounded out of their trade.

Mswati has a firm grip on power, most analysts say. But "these actions are chipping away at the popularity of the monarchy and at the king's flexibility" to rule without question, Nomthetho Simelanne, a political scientist at the University of Swaziland, said in a telephone interview.

Then there is the matter of the king's libido. Mswati created a major stir last September when, days after the last so-called reed dance, an 18-year-old who was in the procession disappeared from her school, apparently spirited to royal quarters to become a wife-in-waiting.

In an unheard-of challenge to Africa's only remaining absolute monarch, the young woman's mother sued for her return. But the courts did not act, the monarchy announced the couple's engagement and the woman has not been seen since.

The king has ample precedent for such behavior: His father, King Sobhuza II, had more than 100 wives. But critics say the dances, once an honored element of Swazi culture, have been devalued by Mswati's antics. Their popularity is said to have declined in recent years.

None of the young women interviewed after Friday's rainout voiced any unhappiness at performing bare-breasted for the king, though.

"I enjoy taking part in the reed dance, because this culture protects my pride as a girl, and this is where I can display it," Dlamini said.

Swaziland's state-run news filled out its parade report Friday night with video clips of an earlier sun-washed procession, adding that parade-day rain is regarded as a blessing. But this was the first procession in memory that was a washout.